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Data and code for: Why Didn't the College Premium Rise Everywhere? Employment Protection and On-the-Job Investment in Skills

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Matthias Doepke, London School of Economics; Ruben Gaetani, University of Toronto

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
codes_empirics			09/27/2023 01:37:PM
codes_model			05/25/2023 07:57:PM
dsets			05/24/2023 04:53:PM
figures_empirics			05/25/2023 08:04:PM
README.pdf	application/pdf	273.1 KB	09/27/2023 09:36:AM

Project Citation:

Doepke, Matthias, and Gaetani, Ruben. Data and code for: Why Didn’t the College Premium Rise Everywhere? Employment Protection and On-the-Job Investment in Skills. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-06-06. https://doi.org/10.3886/E191561V1

Project Description

Summary: Why has the college wage premium risen rapidly in the United States since the 1980s, but not in European economies such as Germany? We argue that differences in employment protection can account for much of the gap. We develop a model in which firms and workers make relationship-specific investments in skill accumulation. The incentive to invest is stronger when employment protection creates an expectation of long-lasting matches. We argue that changes in the economic environment have reduced relationship-specific investment for less-educated workers in the United States, but not for better-protected workers in Germany.

Funding Sources: National Science Foundation (SES-1260961)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: job skills; labor markets; inequality; labor protection

Geographic Coverage: United States, Germany

Time Period(s): 1/1/1981 – 12/31/2013

Related Publications

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Published Versions

V2 [2024-01-26]

V1 [2023-06-06]

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